As a freelancer who has worked for several SMB's, I feel qualified to answer. For the most part, they don't. They may hire someone like me for a project, for

As a freelancer who has worked for several SMB's, I feel qualified to answer. For the most part, they don't. They may hire someone like me for a project, for a few months, and then perhaps an agreement to do a few hours/month of maintenance afterwards. But they don't normally hire a full-time, permanent employee who's a software engineer. In cases where they do, it is because that is fundamental to their business, i.e. they're a software company or something similar. There are also SMB companies which provide IT services for other SMB's, which also bill on an hourly basis. It essentially is several SMB's each paying part of the bill, and that IT services company works for several of them. I should note that, for small companies, something similar often happens for accountants, payroll, and other HR functions; they contract with a company that does this kind of thing for several small businesses.